Yoko Ritona from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (Bounty Hunter Version)

My long national nightmare is over! I had preordered Yoko back in spring from a retailer that listed June as her release date. June came and went, as did July and the rest of summer and half of autumn. Finally I said the hell with this and ordered her from OtakuFuel. That reminds me, I probably ought to cancel my original preorder.

Yoko, of course, hails from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, the well-received anime series from Gainax. I’ve only seen a few episodes of the show so I’m not at all qualified to describe the character. I am told that the particular outfit that Yoko sports here is seen in a dream sequence towards the end of the series.

Manufactured by Alter, Yoko is listed as 1/8 scale. However, she stands about 23 centimeters tall from the ground to the top of her ponytail and she seems even larger than that. This is partly because of her base, which is around a centimeter tall itself, as well as her dimensions in the other axes. Her billowing, tattered coat and her rifle both emphasize her substantial size, giving her additional depth and width. The figure also features surprising heft. All around, I’d say that she’s pretty solidly built.

The paint work and sculpt are typical of Alter’s products, which is to say, they are second to none. All of her clothes are separate pieces that are bonded to her body, which is a nice touch; I like how the waistband of her unzipped shorts are a little loose, how the tops of her boots are falling down a bit, and how the front of her bra top is straining to hold her in.

One thing I would have added is a bit of color to her lips. Her lower lip protrudes in a bit of a smirk, but it’s the same color as her skin. Jubei has slightly darker lips and I think that sort of thing would’ve worked better for Yoko.

Yoko’s main gat appears to be a facsimile of a Barrett M82. It’s bonded right to her so there’s no need to wrestle it into position. In fact, after you unbox her, all you have to do is stick her pistol into its holster and set her up on her base. It’s a refreshing change from some of my recent figures, which needed an annoying amount of disassembly and re-assembly before they were ready for display.

Speaking of the base, Yoko’s got an atypical one. Rather than the typical boring black or white plastic disc, Alter gives us a very spiffy faux-desert rock base. It looks very nice, the paintwork is as solid as it is on Yoko. It’s also not particularly oversized, which is another plus.

I don’t think I did a very good job trying to match the color of the backdrop I built with the base’s color.

Alter makes some of the best figures around, and Yoko is no exception. It’s definitely nice to get a figure that’s actually larger than expected. Add in the figure’s apparent quality, and you’ve got an outstanding figure.

Just about everybody on the planet who wanted Yoko already has Yoko, and there’s about a million reviews of her out on the internets. foo-bar-baz has a review up, of course, as do meronpan, whose pictures aren’t afflicted with the dimness that I like to incorporate into my photos, and Tommy, who if I remember correctly had one of the first English-language reviews of her up on the web. Doubtless there are a bunch more that I have overlooked.

The box gives her name as “Yoko Littner” but every romanization I’ve seen gives her surname as Ritona. I usually go with the official name, but since Ritona seems to be much more commonplace in usage, I’ll go with the people’s choice.

To my shame I still havent got a Review up from Yoko and shes fpr sure one of the best figures of this year and a stron g contender for figure of the year.
I was like you pretty suprised about her size (in a positive way) and her weight.Im not really used to such a sturdy figure.

Really big props for delivering the figure display ready and that you dont have to reassemble her like MegaHouse Figures.While were talking Megahouse….Megahouse delivers no manual while Alter delivers a manual how to add a Gun to the holster.

>> Blowfish
It’s some foamboard, some wadded-up newspaper, and plaster cloth. Here’s a picture of it amid the debris of my room. I’m probably going to pitch it out in the trash.

Yeah, I got a Megahouse figure recently and I was trying to figure out how the heck to disassemble her to remove all of the protective plastic film. It probably took me a good fifteen minutes of carefully tugging pieces to get it all removed.

I will look forward to your review!

>> innosin
I should probably put an e-mail address on my About page or something. I just use ordinary super glue to fix parts, big or little. It bonds fast, it’s strong as hell, and you don’t need to use too much to get a good joint. The brand I use is Loc Tite, but any cyanoacrylate super glue will do, I think.

If you’re getting a prepainted figure though, you probably won’t need glue at all; E2046 assembles most of the figure, and I haven’t actually needed to glue together any of the E2046 figures I own (other than Subaru, but that was my own dumb fault since I knocked her onto the floor).

Littner/Rittona, I actually added one to my review of her nendoroid. Guess this is what you get when English names often get an “Ah” sound at the end, and the L-R mixup, heh. But yes, online she’s “Ritona”, officially she’s “Littner”. She should be Leitner, a nice Jewish name 😉

Hm, you know, I’ve never noticed the lack of paint on her lips, it’s just that these figure has so many different things to look at, that I’ve never seen it. And yes, Yoko is mature, Yoko is full, full of attitude, full of ass-kicking. This is a great figure.
And I too hate trying to slip weapons into their proper place, I kept thinking I’d snap something off with Air.

>> Guy
Yeah, this is an awesome figure, probably the definitive Yoko figure. Which is a bit odd since from what I can tell, she only wore this outfit for a couple of minutes throughout the whole show. I kinda thought that Yoko was going to be the next Rei (or Kanu) as far as figures go.

>> meronpan
If MF hadn’t delayed their Yoko so much, my prophecy would have come true. I’m still looking forward to MF’s figure, even if she might be the most masculine figure I will over own.

I had actually planned a very different scene; when I first saw the figure, I thought she looked like someone who’d just won a barfight. So I was going to build the interior of a bar, with a brick wall background, some overturned tables, and real dim, harsh lighting. Then I noticed her base and that idea pretty much went out the window.

>> Guy
Yeah, nobody’s beating Kanu for scale figures or Rei for general merchandising. I’ve seen pictures of her collection and the thing is, I can believe that she’ll actually be able to get every Yoko PVC figure that gets released. There’s no way you could do with with Rei – she’s got a billion figures and a lot of them are obscure, limited edition, or sold only in Japan – and even Kanu would be tough, just because there’s so many versions and repaints and re-releases of her.

>> Lylibellule
The background is made up of two chunks of foamboard (I recycled parts from the backdrops I made for Subaru and Senhime). The wall in the background is one piece of foamboard that is stood vertically. I taped a bunch of wadded-up newspaper to it and then covered it with plaster cloth. The ground is a combination of baking soda (the “snow” I used for Subaru’s shoot) and normal powder plaster mixed relatively thick so that it wouldn’t drip all over my floor while it dried. The pillar is just a wood dowel that I wrapped some old rope and newspaper around and covered with more plaster cloth. After it all dried, I mixed up some paint (using mostly water, since I needed to paint a lot of surface). Then I dry-brushed some lighter colors on top after the washes had dried.

I found this Youtube video very helpful when I started building dioramas. I’m not a very artistic person (I studied electrical engineering in college and haven’t really done anything creative since elementary school) so having a step-by-step guide that I could watch was very useful.

I am still dragging my feet on getting myself familiar with Yoko, for some reason I don’t feel much in a big hurry. I got hooked on White Album …. yeah I hated the story, hate it so much that I constantly skip scenes I don’t like, but boy did I find a real gem, Ogata Rina, now she’s a real gem! I canceled Alter Fate for her GSC figure.

>> Wolfheinrich
I watched one episode, in which Yayoi tried to seduce the dude. It was sorta cool. I have the feeling that Yayoi is probably a sneaky conniving whore but I guess I’ll have to watch more of the show to make that determination. I’m probably going to order Rina just because I like how she looks, but I dunno if I want Yuki; I don’t like her character design as much but I kinda feel like I should get both if I get one.

>> Hirobot
She does! Now if Alter can just get their Ikkitousen stuff out on time …

>> Wolfheinrich
It sounds like she is wasted in that show, then. I checked the animeondvd.com thread on the show and the consensus seemed to be that the male lead is a douchebag.

>> Lylibellule
One of the things I enjoy the most about collecting figures is the creative aspect of photography. There is nothing creative about Fourier transforms or chemical-vapor deposition < .< >> ELTboy
Thanks! Yeah, this is absolutely one of the best figures of the year.

I was going to throw out the backdrop but I think I’ll keep it around for MegaHouse’s Risty, whom I hope gets shipped in the next week or so … she looks kinda like she should be in a desolate, arid sort of environment.